Top Science News

September 26, 2026

Top Headlines

A Major Risk of Breast Cancer Screening May Have Been Overestimated for Decades

Sep. 26, 2026 A new analysis suggests mammograms may lead to far less breast cancer overdiagnosis than some earlier studies indicated. Researchers reexamined all eight major randomized screening trials and ...

That Fresh Cleaning Smell Could Be Filling Your Home with Nanoparticles

Sep. 26, 2026 Researchers found that scented cleaners can react with ozone indoors to create billions or trillions of invisible nanoparticles that can penetrate deep into the lungs. The pollution forms within minutes and, in some cases, may produce an inhaled ...

Scientists May Have Misread a 2-billion-year-old Clue About Earth

Sep. 26, 2026 Scientists have found that a famous 2-billion-year-old chemical signature, once thought to record a massive global change in Earth’s carbon cycle, may instead have been produced by local magma, hydrocarbons, and methane-eating microbes. The ...

Scientists Burned Their Own Scrolls to Unlock a 2,000-year-old Mystery

Sep. 26, 2026 Scientists discovered that tiny amounts of lead in ancient ink can make writing inside burned papyrus scrolls stand out dramatically in X-ray scans. The technique could help unlock lost Greek and Roman texts preserved by the eruption of Mount ...

Quantum Computer Simulates Matter “Popping Into Existence”

Sep. 26, 2026 Scientists recreated a particle-forming process linked to the extreme physics of the early universe using a 13-ion quantum simulator. The breakthrough suggests quantum computers could eventually help researchers investigate how matter formed and ...

Two Astronauts Who Flew Farther Than Anyone Before Are Taking New NASA Roles

Sep. 26, 2026 Artemis II astronauts Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman are transitioning to emeritus status at NASA after their historic journey around the Moon earlier this year. The pair will continue advising and ...

Zepbound and Mounjaro May Turn on the Body’s Calorie-burning Brown Fat

Sep. 26, 2026 Tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound, activated calorie-burning brown fat in obese mice, revealing a potential metabolic effect beyond appetite suppression. If confirmed in humans, the finding could help explain the drug’s powerful benefits ...

REM Sleep Paradox: Dreaming May Drain the Brain’s Energy Even as Fuel Supply Rises

Sep. 26, 2026 Scientists discovered a surprising energy paradox in the brain during REM sleep, the stage most closely associated with dreaming. Blood supply to the brain begins increasing even before REM starts, ...

The Secret to Growing Food on Mars Could Be Fungi

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists think beneficial fungi could help transform nutrient-poor lunar and Martian regolith into a material capable of supporting crops. By helping plants access nutrients and withstand harsh conditions, these microbes could someday make ...

Don’t Toss Cannabis Leaves: They May Contain Rare Compounds with Medical Potential

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists discovered rare flavoalkaloids in Cannabis leaves for the first time, along with dozens of other phenolic compounds that had never been reported in the plant. The findings suggest that ...

Scientists Discovered Two Bizarre New Sea Spiders That Are “Nightmare Fuel”

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists discovered two strange new sea spider species in the Salish Sea, including a hairy-legged, red-eyed species that can groom itself with comb-like appendages. Another is frequently covered ...

This “Rare” Autism-linked Genetic Disorder May Be Far More Common Than Scientists Thought

Sep. 25, 2026 A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:26am EDT

CERN Has Begun Disconnecting the Large Hadron Collider

Sep. 25, 2026 CERN has started replacing some of the Large Hadron Collider’s most important magnets as part of its High-Luminosity upgrade. The new superconducting magnets will produce fields about 40% stronger, ...

Earth Is Tearing Apart Beneath the Pacific Northwest

Sep. 25, 2026 Scientists have captured a subduction zone off Vancouver Island in the process of tearing itself apart, revealing that these massive tectonic systems may die piece by piece rather than all at once. ...

Scientists Gave Worms Magnetic Bacteria. They Lived 43% Longer

Sep. 24, 2026 A magnet-producing bacterium extended the average lifespan of C. elegans worms by more than 43% while helping protect their neurological and intestinal health. Researchers traced much of the effect ...

“We Found Something Never Seen Before” – A Dead Star Is Producing a Shock Wave That Shouldn’t Exist

Sep. 24, 2026 A dead white dwarf with no detectable disk has somehow produced a powerful shock wave that appears to have persisted for at least 1,000 years. Its ...

Ancient Meteorites Reveal a Powerful Force That Helped Build the Solar System

Sep. 24, 2026 Ancient grains inside one of the oldest known meteorites reveal that a surprisingly strong magnetic field existed during the solar system’s first ...

Scientists Discover an “impossible” Cellular Survival Pathway That Could Help Fight Cancer

Sep. 24, 2026 Scientists discovered a surprising backup system that lets mammalian cells make the essential amino acid cysteine even when the pathways once ...

ADHD and Autism Diagnoses Have Surged. A Massive Study May Help Explain Why

Sep. 24, 2026 A large Danish study found that children diagnosed with ADHD or autism today more closely resemble their peers in the general population than those diagnosed 10 years ago. The shift suggests that ...

When What You See Doesn’t Make Sense, Your Brain Does Something Remarkable

Sep. 24, 2026 The brain may have a built-in way to quickly settle disagreements between regions processing the same scene. Researchers found that matching signals ...

Distant Time Crystals Can Somehow Fall Into the Same Rhythm

Sep. 24, 2026 Researchers have shown that multiple time crystals inside a semiconductor can synchronize their oscillations, much like pendulum clocks gradually falling into the same rhythm. The coupling is carried ...

Scientists Thought They Knew How This 70-Year-Old Leukemia Drug Worked

Sep. 24, 2026 A 70-year-old leukemia drug is still revealing new secrets. Researchers found that removing a protein called NUDT5 protected cells from the drug, even though simply blocking the protein had little ...

These Massive Stars Could Explain Webb’s Strangest Galaxies

Sep. 24, 2026 Hubble observations of massive stars in metal-poor dwarf galaxies are revealing clues to why the early universe looks so unusual. Researchers found that stellar winds weaken sharply at extremely low ...

The End of Humanity? What Would Happen If the Yellowstone Supervolcano Erupted Now

Sep. 22, 2026 A Yellowstone super-eruption would begin not with a sudden surprise, but with weeks of increasingly alarming warning signs such as migrating earthquake swarms, rapid ground uplift, changing geysers, ...

Rare Pregnancy Infections May Triple the Risk of Autism

Sep. 23, 2026 A major Swedish study of 3.7 million people has found that rare TORCH infections passed from a pregnant woman to the fetus are linked to much higher risks of autism and intellectual disability later ...

One of America’s Largest Reservoirs Just Hit a Record Low

Sep. 22, 2026 Lake Powell has fallen to its lowest level on record after an exceptionally dry and warm winter left the Colorado River Basin with little mountain snow to melt. Lake Mead also reached record lows, ...

The Solar System Chose Fire Over Ice from the Very Beginning

Sep. 22, 2026 Ancient iron meteorites reveal that some of the Solar System’s first solid bodies were built mostly from tiny heat-forged rock beads called chondrules, while water-rich dust was largely excluded. ...

Chronic Stress May Be Quietly Reshaping Your Heart

Sep. 21, 2026 Chronic inflammation tied to stress, lifestyle, mental health, and socioeconomic conditions may silently change the heart for years before any symptoms appear. People with the highest inflammation ...

Stanford Scientists Discover the Human Brain May Actually Be Two Separate Organs

Sep. 21, 2026 Scientists have found that the human brain develops from two distinct cellular systems, suggesting that evolution fused together two ancient nervous systems with very different jobs. The discovery ...

More REM Sleep Linked to Lower Risk of 83 Diseases

Sep. 23, 2026 A large study tracking more than 95,000 people suggests that how you sleep may be linked to your risk of developing dozens of diseases. People who spent more time in REM sleep had lower risks of 83 ...

The LHC Just Ruled out Another Hiding Place for Quantum Black Holes

Sep. 22, 2026 Physicists searching through Large Hadron Collider data found no evidence that the machine has been producing microscopic quantum black holes, but the result sharply narrows where such exotic physics ...

For the First Time, Scientists Watch Sound Jump Between Quantum States

Sep. 22, 2026 Stanford researchers have recorded the first real-time quantum jumps of sound, watching single phonons abruptly vanish from one energy state to another. The breakthrough could open new paths for ...

Black Holes of Every Size Follow the Same Surprising Rule

Sep. 21, 2026 Scientists have found evidence that black holes of vastly different sizes may launch powerful jets according to the same universal rule. Supermassive black holes can produce jets soon after tearing ...

What Kills Schrödinger’s Cat? Gravity May Not Be the Answer

Sep. 21, 2026 Physicists have put a decades-old idea about why the strange rules of quantum mechanics disappear in our everyday world to one of its toughest experimental tests yet. Deep beneath Italy’s Gran ...

Scientists Find That “perfect” Systems May Be Surprisingly Fragile

Sep. 19, 2026 Complex systems may work better when their parts are not perfectly alike. Northwestern physicists found that carefully balanced variation, or “disorder,” can make networks such as power grids, ...

Billions in Rare Earth Elements May Be Hiding in America’s Coal Ash

Sep. 18, 2026 Scientists are looking to diatoms, sea sponges, and plants for a cleaner way to recover rare earth elements and other valuable minerals hidden inside coal ash, red mud, and mine tailings. The ...

Humpback Whale Mother May Have Mourned Her Dead Calf for Days

Sep. 22, 2026 Researchers observed a humpback whale mother staying beside her presumed stillborn calf for hours and possibly days off Australia’s Gold Coast. She maintained eye contact and remained close to the ...

Ancient DNA Reveals How Plague Kept Returning for 400 Years After the Black Death

Sep. 20, 2026 Ancient DNA reveals that plague repeatedly returned to Europe for more than 400 years after the Black Death, evolving into new lineages and spreading through trade, migration, and war. Researchers ...

A 66-Million-Year-Old Tooth Reveals T. Rex Was Nearly as Warm as a Human

Sep. 20, 2026 Chemical clues preserved inside fossilized T. rex teeth reveal that the dinosaur maintained a body temperature of about 97 degrees Fahrenheit, almost identical to humans. The finding provides direct ...

NASA’s Moon Orbiter Finds a 728-Foot Crater That Wasn’t There Before

Sep. 18, 2026 NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed a 728-foot-wide crater that formed on the Moon in 2024, making it the largest newly formed crater ever identified in the solar system. The impact ...

Astronomers Just Found the Youngest Known Planet Ever

Sep. 17, 2026 Astronomers have confirmed a Jupiter-size planet less than a million years old, making Elias 2-24 b the youngest known planet and giving scientists a rare look at a world still being born. Its ...

JWST’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Black Holes Growing at Incredible Speeds

Sep. 17, 2026 New supercomputer simulations suggest JWST’s puzzling Little Red Dots are rapidly growing black holes from the early Universe. Extreme radiation may have helped create unusually massive black hole ...